“Does my child need to homeschool to make it to division 1 collegiate tennis?” - Junior Tennis Parent
It’s a question parents ask themselves all the time. They hear the stories of players coming out of IMG, Saddlebrook and other academies. They hear the stories of former successful players practicing 4-5 hours of tennis a day, doing fitness, and think that might be the only way.
I’m here to say…….it’s not the only way.
But the things home school programs offer must be done some how and this is where a lot of after school programs fail.
They fail because after school drills occur during the busiest times of play. This limits the types of practices they can offer.
Homeschooling programs occur during the quietist times of the day. They can use as many courts as they want to spread kids out. This allows coaches to run the best practices possible. They can do match play, full court singles drills, proper feeding drills, utilize the gym for fitness, etc.
For after school drills to offer the same quality practices, they’d have to severely limit the number of kids taking part in drills, or limit member or public play so the kids can have more courts to spread out. Both options hurt their revenue, and would leave a lot of people unhappy.
The good news is, if a parent can implement the following 7 things in their child’s development, they’ll have a better chance of making it to division 1 college tennis, without homeschooling.